Donald Miller (00:00):

It was very important for me to have my dreams crushed, to detach my ego from my ability so that I could objectively say, "You're not good at this. You're not good at this." But gosh, mistakes are more important than successes. That's the big lesson that you want to teach everybody is, failure is your biggest teacher.

Mike Michalowicz (00:18):

It's your biggest ally.

Donald Miller (00:19):

It forges you, forgive yourself and move on.

Mike Michalowicz (00:23):

The biggest names in business didn't start out that way. These are the unfiltered stories of entrepreneurs who turned small business into big success and transformed themselves along the way because success isn't just about what you build, it's who you become. I'm Mike Michalowicz, and this is Becoming Self Made a podcast from Relay. And today's guest is Donald Miller, founder and CEO of StoryBrand.

(00:49):

Donald Miller is a guy who's lived a lot of lives. He's been a bestselling author of books from memoirs including Blue Like Jazz and A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, to business heavy hitters, including building a StoryBrand and Hero on a Mission. Today, he's the brain behind the multimillion-dollar juggernaut that is StoryBrand. From the White House to Berkshire Hathaway, Storybrand's framework has helped clarify the messages of countless companies. Button Don's words, his proudest accomplishment is being a fantastic father.

(01:18):

I sat down with Don at a studio in Nashville where we went through his story of becoming self-made from the humblest of beginnings. And one of the first things I had him do was a Lifeline Exercise where he plotted on a large poster board the highs and lows over his life in five-year increments. Here's my conversation with Donald Miller.

(01:37):

So, here's what I'd like you to do. What I'd like you to do is if you could put 10, 20, 30 if you wish, or you can do a five-year increments, I would like you just to spend, and I'll be quiet for five minutes since you've done this exercise, is write down just little dots on the highs and lows, and I'd like to go through that story. How about I hold it up like this?

Donald Miller (01:59):

I'm a writer, not a hand writer.

Mike Michalowicz (02:02):

So, that way our audience can see it too.

Donald Miller (02:04):

Well, they're not going to be able to read any of it, but I'll interpret it.

Mike Michalowicz (02:06):

I think what's just interesting is the amplitude of change over time. So, why don't you walk me through some of these elements.

Donald Miller (02:12):

I grew up in Houston, Texas. My mother was a secretary at an oil and gas company, no bachelor's degree. She met my dad in college. They fell in love, got married, and when I was... They had a baby girl, and then me. So, when I was 2 and my sister was probably 3.5, dad left. And so, I have no memory of that. But I grew up in a single-parent home. Mom probably made in today's money, maybe 35 grand until I was 21.

(02:46):

So, we were raised on nothing. We stood in line for government cheese and all that kind. I mean, we were raised on very little. We just didn't have any money. However, she was really determined to be a great mom that ended up being foundational looking back. And then, I would say my school years, elementary school all the way through high school and even kind of into the college age years would really be a lot of dysfunction and chaos.

Mike Michalowicz (03:13):

You went on to college; you went to Reed College.

Donald Miller (03:15):

Sort of. So, I made terrible grades, barely got out of high school. I should not have gotten out of high school. They altered the numbers to get rid of me. And then, there was one class called Honors Psychology, and it was only the kids in the honor program that could be part of this class. And I convinced them to let me into that class and I made a 99 in that class. And I've discovered that I'm very good at writing essays and I'm very interested in psychology. And...

Mike Michalowicz (03:46):

Isn't this starting thread for StoryBrand for this whole company?

Donald Miller (03:48):

Yes.

Mike Michalowicz (03:49):

So, it starts when you're a teen.

Donald Miller (03:50):

For everything. So, it starts in high school when I took an honors psychology class. That was the introduction to me of frameworks that explained behavior.

Mike Michalowicz (03:58):

Interesting.

Donald Miller (03:59):

And I was fascinated by it and ended up outscoring the valedictorian. The rest of my grades would not let me get anywhere near that.

Mike Michalowicz (04:08):

Oh, my gosh.

Donald Miller (04:10):

But that was me realizing, "Oh, you're not dumb. You're not dumb." The other thing about that class, unlike any other high school class is your grade was the... Your grade over one semester... Normally, there would be daily quizzes and homework. There were five essay questions that you had to answer. And so, it was writing, and that was the first time I thought that I realized, "So, you have a little bit of a natural ability here."

Mike Michalowicz (04:37):

Your writing is exceptional. I mean, exceptional. I thought you went to Reed College, didn't you?

Donald Miller (04:43):

So, the next upswing, this would be dysfunction and chaos. Then, everybody that I knew left to go to Texas A&M and University of Texas, but I didn't have the grades, so I kind of dabbled around at Alvin Community College, home of the fighting Dolphins. I had no... I didn't even know what day it was much less when something was due.

(05:02):

So, I failed out pretty quickly. Then, I went on a cross-country trip with a new friend who lived in Oregon. He was from Oregon. He said, "Why don't you jump in the van with me and go back? We'll do a road trip across America from Houston to... We were going to try to get to Alaska." We ended up in Portland. We ran out of money there and I got a job at a RadioShack. I didn't have a car. So, I'd walked to RadioShack every day. That was really interesting.

(05:28):

And then, I would take the train into Portland, the Light Rail where there was a bookstore called Powell's Books, and I couldn't afford to buy books. And I would pile up books in the coffee shop and read books. And then, at RadioShack, I bought a computer. And on that computer, I started writing.

Mike Michalowicz (05:48):

How old were you at that time?

Donald Miller (05:50):

That would have been, I was 20 when I moved to Portland. And so, this was probably been about 24, 25. I got a job at a publishing company. There was a guy who walked into RadioShack to buy a computer and he said, "Do you want a better job than this?" And I said, "What do you got?" And he said, "I've got a warehouse. I'm a publisher. I publish books. I've got a warehouse and I need somebody to box up books." And I took that job, and four years later was the president of that publishing company. I mean, I just had a knack for understanding how to sell books and how they need to be positioned. And I watched these authors that I signed writing books and I just thought, "I think I can do this." And I wrote a book about crossing the country. So, that's the first book.

Mike Michalowicz (06:37):

And that's a highlight here. The first book.

Donald Miller (06:39):

Highlight, this immediately goes down because the book failed.

Mike Michalowicz (06:42):

What does that mean?

Donald Miller (06:43):

The book sold 10,000 copies. And...

Mike Michalowicz (06:45):

Okay. And so, that's a fail?

Donald Miller (06:47):

That's a fail. I mean, it's a fail for you. If you wrote a book and sold 10,000 copies, you wouldn't be happy with that.

Mike Michalowicz (06:53):

Well, it depends on you. The average author sells 250 books in their lifetime. Did you feel as a fail then? Or is this in retrospect?

Donald Miller (06:59):

No, I was a failure. I knew it.

Mike Michalowicz (07:00):

Really? Why? What was the success for you back then?

Donald Miller (07:02):

Well, I didn't have any successes.

Mike Michalowicz (07:05):

What did you frame? Like, I've made it when I...

Donald Miller (07:08):

I wanted to be the next John Steinbeck. And writing that book made me realize I'm not and will never be a literary grade, which was actually an important moment for me to sort of settle in and say, "Hey, you're a mid-tier author in terms of your ability and how can you make the most of it? How can you now write and develop this as a craft and a skill rather than trying to win the Pulitzer Prize?"

Mike Michalowicz (07:37):

So, you realize that, but I'm just surprised you didn't say, "Maybe books aren't for me." It sounds like you pivoted in that moment and said, "Well, what? It's for me." Is that fair?

Donald Miller (07:46):

I think I was still sort of delusional about my abilities for the first book. The second book is the book that hit the New York Times.

Mike Michalowicz (07:54):

That's the Blue Like Jazz.

Donald Miller (07:56):

But it was very important for me to have my dreams crushed and realize. I think it's very important for every person, if they want to accomplish something great in a career, to have a season where they actually take a careful inventory of what their actual abilities are. And we all have friends who have delusional greatness in their subconscious, and because of that, they never actually get better. You have to be able to say, and this is another season of being able to detach my ego from my ability so that I could objectively say, "You're not good at this. You're not good at this." So, you need to work on those things and get better at those things.

Mike Michalowicz (08:38):

But isn't there a moment you just throw your hands up? I love that objectivity. I love evaluating, taking inventory. I like the trigger of being crushed. At least I comprehend it. But, for me, I throw my hands up and say, "Curse you God. Why me? I suck. I'm done." Does that really trigger your inventory? Was there times that you wanted to throw your hands up and say, "I'm done?"

Donald Miller (09:02):

No. I mean, I thought...

Mike Michalowicz (09:03):

Really?

Donald Miller (09:04):

Yeah, because if you can't be the greatest player in the history of the NBA, you can still play in the NBA. And I knew I could still play in the NBA. I knew I could still be a good writer. I could still do that. And then, also in this season, the commercial success of the second book, which is Blue Like Jazz, provided more money than I'd ever seen in my lifetime.

Mike Michalowicz (09:25):

What kind of money?

Donald Miller (09:27):

I mean, I remember specifically, Mike, now I'm a single man living in Portland, Oregon. I remember getting a... It was either an advanced check or a royalty check for about half a million dollars. And I remember standing in line at the bank to deposit, physically deposit this check and realizing that if I go next, I'm not going to get the cute teller. And so, I moved to the second person in line so that I could deposit half a million dollars with the girl that I was actually attracted to.

Mike Michalowicz (10:01):

Everything, poetry, depositing checks. And did she respond? Did she...

Donald Miller (10:06):

No. So, I sold my second company. We talked for a few million dollars and they paid us in tranches. And the first check was $375,000. So, I've never had a check that big. My hand is shaking. I pull up to the teller window about the drive-through and I put my check in the little vacuum slot with my license. I assume when you deposit that much money got prove who you are. And there's this like zitted teenage kid sitting there clicking away. I'm like, "This kid is going to crap his pants when he sees this." And he gets the check; he never looks up. I get the receipt back and there's a lollipop in there.

Mike Michalowicz (10:38):

And that was it. Nothing.

Donald Miller (10:41):

I know. But I think I had a similar experience with mine.

Mike Michalowicz (10:43):

But, for me, that reset my ego. It's just a number. Did it change your perspective once you deposit that money? Did you see that money differently?

Donald Miller (10:54):

Well, I think the book had been out for a year and a half before it hit the New York Times. And I was here in Nashville because my publisher is here doing some speaking event. They called me while I was in the airport. I had just landed and said, "Can you come by the office?" The office for my publisher, which was Thomas Nelson at that time is, I don't know, 10 minutes from the airport. I said, "Sure." I said, "Why?" He goes, "Well, you just made the New York Times bestsellers list." And I was floored. I was like, "Are you freaking kidding me?"

(11:21):

I remember a guy said, he brought me in to speak. He paid me five grand to speak. And he said, "I would love to do a book signing while you're here. Can you do a book signing?" I said, "Sure." And then, when I got here, he said, "Well, we rented the Belcourt Theatre for the book signing." I said, "You're crazy." I said, "You got to understand, I do book signings like four people show up and three of them think I'm Rob Bell. They don't even know who I am."

(11:46):

And we get there and the theater is about 200 seats. The theater is full when we get there. And there is a line around the block of people who won't leave. They're not going to get in and they will not leave. And that's the day that I realized something's happening with this book that I didn't know was happening. And that was the first time in my life I would have been about 28, 29, something like that, that it had any reason to have any self-esteem whatsoever. That was the first success really.

Mike Michalowicz (12:17):

So, the book fails, but the second book hits it. I'm actually surprised your dot is so low. I thought that'd be way up there. What's this all about?

Donald Miller (12:23):

Okay, so the next several books would sell like 100,000 to 200,000 copies and I would consider those okay. But not indicative that I'm like a national name, best-selling author. So, it was important... It was an important season for me to keep writing the next book, the next book, the next book, even though they weren't lottery tickets, like Blue Like Jazz was. I would say that was a negative season of sort of growing that's labeled their okay book sales.

(12:54):

And then, StoryBrand was the second New York Times bestseller. Actually, I think there were other New York Times bestsellers, but they didn't stay on the list. And StoryBrand actually stayed a bestseller again. So, it was like I struck all twice. There were about six books between the two. But that was the first book that was a business book. Everything else was a sort of a faith-oriented memoir.

Mike Michalowicz (13:19):

How do you make that transition? Because you're the faith-based guy?Donald Miller (13:22):

I had studied story structure in order to write a screenplay with some screenwriters about one of my books. And we actually wrote a screenplay and put it into theaters, it bombed, the movie bombed. But it was a great experience.

(13:35):

And so, I had studied story and story structure in order to write this screenplay and to write better books. And the publisher said, "Hey, we want another memoir." They knew if they did another Donald Miller memoir, they could sell 200,000 and maybe we'd get a breakout bestseller, but I'd written seven of them. I mean, literally, Mike, like nothing else had happened.

Mike Michalowicz (13:55):

No stories left, man.

Donald Miller (13:56):

Yeah, I can't... This is pre-AI, right? I can't make stuff up. So, I said, "I've got a book about narrative structures and how to use them as a filter for marketing messages for corporations." And they looked at me like, "What are you talking about?" And I said, "It's a framework I've created. It's called StoryBrand. I workshopped it to some degree with Accenture in a consulting format." In fact, my agent confessed to me last week that he negotiated that contract and he and the publisher had a conversation in which they had both agreed this book was going nowhere.

Mike Michalowicz (14:37):

So, why would they do the deal?

Donald Miller (14:39):

They did the deal because they didn't want to lose me and they wanted me to figure out that I'd go back to memoir.

Mike Michalowicz (14:43):

Interesting.

Donald Miller (14:44):

Yeah. And that book ended up... Actually, I don't think StoryBrand has ever hit the New York Times, but it's ended up selling more copies than the book that did, which is confusing. And that book is selling more eight years later than it did on the year it came out or any year previous.

Mike Michalowicz (15:03):

Let's move forward here. So, StoryBrand comes out, it's New York Times bestseller. This business is seeded by that? Or did the business...

Donald Miller (15:10):

Yeah, so the book came out and it was a bestseller. And even before I released the book, our first clients were Procter & Gamble and like Ford called...

Mike Michalowicz (15:19):

How did you get those clients?

Donald Miller (15:20):

... and said... They had heard me talking about it, maybe on social media, I don't know. And then, we released the book and I mean, national security called about how do we message our China policy.

Mike Michalowicz (15:35):

But the book is triggering all these calls.

Donald Miller (15:37):

The book started triggering these calls. And so, I was also asked, "Can you do our marketing for us? Because you seem to know a lot about it." And I decided I am a writer. I'm not a micromanager of 250 web developers. I'm not going to do well at that. So, I started certifying existing freelance marketers in my frameworks and that created a company.

Mike Michalowicz (15:59):

So, you were kind of thrust into entrepreneurship this phase? Do you have a background in it?

Donald Miller (16:03):

Well, I was always sort of an entrepreneur in terms of liking to promote whatever I was doing and creating little products on the side. But I think in terms of creating like a formal business that has 35 employees and a significant payroll and all that, that was my entrance into that.

Mike Michalowicz (16:18):

Do you feel that you're capable of running a business? This is a very sizable business, got multiple locations, you have 35 employees, there's a lot of money flowing through this business, but you've defined yourself as a writer. Do you ever feel that you're not capable of this? You ever.

Donald Miller (16:34):

No, I'm smart enough to know what my liabilities are, which is more important than knowing your strengths.

Mike Michalowicz (16:40):

Oh, tell me about that

Donald Miller (16:41):

So, my liabilities are going to be, "I'm not going to be a micromanager. I'm not walking into your office every day to find out what you're working on." So, because that's my liability, I know I can only hire self-starters. I have to hire people who can manage themselves. I also know that my strengths, my visionary strengths, the ability to see a future and make that future happen is out of one to 10 is a 10.

(17:07):

My ability to create strategy is probably an eight to a 10. My ability to clarify a message so that people understand what we're trying to do as a 10. My Ability sit down with somebody and give a daily performance review, it is at a zero. I mean, I'm just not going to do it. I'm not interested. The daily operations are not something I'm interested in.

(17:28):

So, knowing that liability means I hire a president to run my company and I'm the CEO and I provide vision, I provide strategy, I provide direction, I provide reason why we're doing this, what's the mission behind it? So, I think the reason I have confidence is I know very well what I'm bad at and I've staffed it

Mike Michalowicz (17:47):

Have you made missteps in the staffing.

Donald Miller (17:51):

Yeah. I mean, yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, you hire people who aren't good at the job you needed them to do. And then, as quickly as you can, what I do is try to put them somewhere else inside the company.

Mike Michalowicz (18:00):

Okay.

Donald Miller (18:01):

I would say, we've had very few people that we've fired because they couldn't do the job. You can always do something.

Mike Michalowicz (18:09):

So, StoryBrand, the company, was it just you initially, just Don?

Donald Miller (18:14):

Well, you know what happened was, there was a guy named Richard Bach who wrote a book called Jonathan Livingston Seagull, and he lived in Portland, Oregon where I lived. And his house went up for sale. And I wanted his house. So, I sold my house in order to buy that one and somebody bought it out from under me and I lost the house.

(18:38):

So, I was sitting on all of the money I'd ever made or saved from the Blue Like Jazz years, and I didn't know what to do with it. And I found a six-month investment that would allow me to make a little money, and then in six months be able to buy some other house. And I put my money into that investment. And I will never forget, Mike, on a Monday morning, realized it was all gone, every penny. I had lost my entire life savings. I grew up poor. I'd had a New York Times bestseller. That was my only shot at becoming wealthy and lost everything.

(19:14):

And at that point, I had to decide, and it took a couple of weeks, I'm not going to lie to you. I had to decide, "Is this going to be the season in which you turn around and blame for being a massive success financially?" And I decided that that's exactly what it was going to be, that I wrote my future, to be able to look back and say, "Because you lost everything, you made these changes and were able to rebuild." And so, that's what I did.

(19:48):

And at that point, I went from an author who makes money off royalties and speaking to a business owner who makes products and sells them. And this is different. It's a mental shift. And actually, my assistant came to me. She had been with me for years and years, nearly a decade, and said, "I want to be home with my kids while they're in high school. It's my last shot with them. I am giving you six months." And I said, "Okay, let's find somebody, but let's not find another assistant. Let's find somebody who can help me run a company."

(20:18):

I don't know what I'm going to do, but I'm going to create a company. We found this guy Tim Schurrer, and that was the beginning of creating what became StoryBrand and as a consulting company and certification company for this framework, this message clarification framework. So, that would be the transition, how it happened in terms of me figuring out, "I am going to own a company and I'm going to be a business guy."

(20:44):

Now, I had run a publishing company before, so I had had a CEO seat in a very, very small way. So, I had a little familiarity with it, but that was the beginning of the transition for me. And by the way, within three years, my wife and I were giving away to charity more money than I lost on that day. And I credit it all to choosing not to be a victim when I made a stupid mistake.

Mike Michalowicz (21:08):

Well, was it a scam?

Donald Miller (21:10):

It was not a scam. No, there were friends involved and there are people I love. It was just a roll of dice and didn't work out.

Mike Michalowicz (21:16):

And Betsy was with you back all the way back then?

Donald Miller (21:19):

We were about to get engaged the day I lost everything. And so, she still married me, so I owe her.

Mike Michalowicz (21:27):

Wow. Yeah. Wow. So, you don't know what the business is going to be, you just know it's going to be a business that sells products so you can monetize consistently.

Donald Miller (21:34):

Yeah, we were going to sell things.

Mike Michalowicz (21:36):

What's the technique? I think you said a monthly recurring revenue stream, if I recall correctly.

Donald Miller (21:41):

Yes.

Mike Michalowicz (21:41):

What is that? How'd you do it?

Donald Miller (21:43):

Well, I wrote a book that was, honestly, it's kind of full circle. I wrote a book that was sort of a life planning process and rather than publishing it through a publisher self-published and sold it off of Amazon and it had an online platform as part of, honestly, very similar to what I'm doing now. And then, we were doing workshops and conferences and things like that. That was the first, that was the initial business.

Mike Michalowicz (22:04):

Okay. And today, it has 35 people now?

Donald Miller (22:08):

Thirty-five employees, yeah.

Mike Michalowicz (22:10):

Are you willing to share revenue?

Donald Miller (22:11):

Yeah. So, we'll close in at about between $12 million and $15 million.

Mike Michalowicz (22:17):

Right. So, that means there's a big monthly payroll. We're talking six figures in monthly payroll.

Donald Miller (22:21):

Yeah, it's almost a million dollars, actually. Monthly expenses is nearly a million.

Mike Michalowicz (22:25):

Okay, how does that feel? Especially when women grew up with no money living off government cheese, and now you got to pay a month every month a million dollars or you're in...

Donald Miller (22:36):

It used to be terrifying. It's not anymore. If you get up and do work and if you innovate and if you kind of listen to your customers quite a bit, you can make your monthly not pretty consistently. And we also, we live off less than we make and we budget really well. And we do profit first. I mean, we just to a tee...

Mike Michalowicz (22:59):

Awesome.

Donald Miller (23:00):

... and it's been six years since I've worried about finances. We have an enormous security net.

Mike Michalowicz (23:10):

Which is only pretty recently, six years. From the outside, it seems like you've been in the state forever. The StoryBrand has been around forever, but it's really...

Donald Miller (23:16):

So, I think the book came out about eight years ago.

Mike Michalowicz (23:20):

Interesting.

Donald Miller (23:21):

Yeah, so it'll be about two years after that. So, six years that we started really a company.

Mike Michalowicz (23:27):

And what about preparing for the next stage of business, particularly with AI and the rise of AI? Does this business change fundamentally?

Donald Miller (23:34):

The business changes fundamentally. What really changes are, we certify these coaches. We used to certify coaches to do the writing for you to clarify your message and give you that message. They still do that, but AI just does it faster and often does it better. And so, now we are certifying coaches to help you navigate AI. I mean, to help you understand how to utilize AI to improve your marketing, improve your messaging, and distribute and ship messages faster, optimize so that you're showing up on ChatGPT.

(24:10):

And honestly, so we've pivoted our certifications from people who execute on marketing strategies to people who strategize and help you execute yourself, or they'll do it for you as well. And the results that they're getting for their clients is much higher than what you could previously get. In fact, I would say, there is more confusion about what to do in messaging and marketing now than ever because there's more opportunities and you don't know which one to take. And so, we've had to pivot considerabl

Mike Michalowicz (24:43):

But do you feel your people, the coaching community who is executing is now strategizing? Do they feel threatened any of them? A portion of them from the AI?

Donald Miller (24:51):

A lot of them felt threatened. In fact, when we explained that, "Hey, I can't make AI go away, and I think it's actually a ridiculously fantastic tool that will end up helping business owners more than our current business model can." So, for them to go to you and give you $10,000 to create a website, which can now be done for free, arguably better. I'm not going to hide that fact from them.

(25:18):

So, you have to join me. We have to figure out how you can become AI experts and how we can get our clients better results than they could get on their own. And so, a good 40% left because they were mad at me because I wouldn't pretend AI doesn't exist and not tell people about it, "Let's hide that." And I'm not going to hide the fact that it's a better solution.

(25:40):

So, the 60% who stayed with me were joined by hundreds of others who love AI and love seeing themselves and learning how to be a strategist. They're getting fantastic results in a short period of time that they weren't getting that are much more valuable. So, they're making actually more money on the open market than they were creating websites.

Mike Michalowicz (26:01):

I'm curious about your culture here. It is one of my favorite offices to visit, very warm people. I remember talking with Kerry, your assistant, and he says, there's a talk about you bringing the slide to your house, 150-foot slide. Kerry's like, "Oh, that's Don." For you, what's your role in the culture here? It sounds like you're the fun guy.

Donald Miller (26:21):

Oh, I don't know about that. I don't know that anybody in our team would say, "Don's the fun guy." I think they would say, "Don is the visionary. He always knows we're going to be two years from now, much less 10. And he's the strategist." And apart from that, I hope that I'm just an encourager. I try to not step too firmly into daily operations. So, I think if you've not been in the room for a week, "Why are you opening your mouth?" And so, I try to walk that line. I feel like I've got a first-class seat on this airplane. I've got capable pilots.

Mike Michalowicz (27:03):

So, you don't grab the controls...

Donald Miller (27:04):

No.

Mike Michalowicz (27:05):

... but you're talking to the people flying saying, "What's your ideas?"

Donald Miller (27:07):

That's right. And it's a recurring conversation about whether or not I'm trying to grab the controls, whether or not I need to, whether or not you've got this, what we're trying to do. Those are almost monthly conversations.

Mike Michalowicz (27:21):

That's a good conversation to have. It's a very good conversation to have. Yeah, you've hired capable people.

Donald Miller (27:25):

But it's not that they can't do it without me. It's that I'm part of the team. So, why would you try to do it without me, right? Like the whole idea is, "We can do this together."

Mike Michalowicz (27:37):

And it's not about compliance with your dictum. This is the way we're going. You're a participant and you bring your assets

Donald Miller (27:45):

Yeah.

Mike Michalowicz (27:46):

Okay.

Donald Miller (27:46):

There's no authoritarian structure at all within our organization. I mean, people will push back on my ideas publicly, and I'm great with it. I'm like, "Well, tell me what you're thinking. Here's why I think that won't work. Tell me what I'm not seeing." Those very open conversations are really important in order... Who cares, if we aren't thinking about what the main objective is and what will subjectively or objectively work here and you are bringing in your ego, you're hurting the whole team.

Mike Michalowicz (28:18):

How do you feel about the business now?

Donald Miller (28:19):

I love it. I feel like it's a second career for me. The first career was sitting alone in my underwear writing books and...

Mike Michalowicz (28:26):

Thanks for the visual, Don.

Donald Miller (28:26):

... people sitting alone in their underwear, reading them like two years later. But this is a second career. It's been as rewarding as the first career. I've loved it. I've loved building a team. I love my team.

Mike Michalowicz (28:39):

What's the last step here? Because this seems very recent.

Donald Miller (28:42):

Yeah. So, this would be... So, I got married to a woman who is an amazing partner for me. I would say, in fact, the majority of my financial success and leadership success has been in the last 12 years since I got married because I married the right woman, because we became a team. And then, became a dad, which was an amazing eye-opening experience because it gave reason for everything. The fact that I'm a dad now and providing for this daughter. Also, I became a dad at 49 years old, and it's a very different experience than... At 25, I don't think I would have been a good dad.

Mike Michalowicz (29:22):

Tell me about that dip. What is that?

Donald Miller (29:24):

That dip is, if a man in his 50s works out very hard while going from hot-to-cold temperatures, he can experience something called transient global amnesia. And basically, you lose all your short-term memory. So, you can't remember anything for the last 20 minutes, but you can remember long-term stuff. And that happened to me. I thought I was having a stroke. And so, my wife was nine months pregnant. She was two weeks away from having a baby.

(29:54):

So, I was trying to use my phone to figure out whether or not I'd had a stroke without her knowing. And I ended up discovering transient global amnesia. It is harmless. It's going to go away in 24 hours. So, I finally went to her and I said, "Hey, I think I've got this thing. It's called transient global amnesia. Can you look at this?" And she's looking at me and I'm saying, "Do you want to talk about it?" And she goes, "Don, this is the 10th time you've told me."

Mike Michalowicz (30:22):

That must have scared...

Donald Miller (30:23):

Scared the heck out of her.

Mike Michalowicz (30:24):

Yeah.

Donald Miller (30:25):

So, 24 hours later, I get over it. Two years later, it happens again. And I'm like, "Hey, it's transient global amnesia." She goes, "Yeah, I know you've told me 25 times." She takes me to the hospital. And she literally says, "I don't want him back until you tell me anything that's wrong with this guy." And they come in and they say, "You are as healthy as you can possibly be, especially for a 50-year-old guy except for you have heart failure." And the doctor says, "I can't even believe that you walked in here."

(30:55):

And I went home and Googled life expectancy, heart failure, and it was one to five years. And I couldn't find anything that said I was alive in five years. Everything was year of goner. And for 10 days, I was convinced and grieving the fact that I was going to abandon my daughter. So, I'm imagining her life without a dad. I'm imagining her life without me. I'm literally calling our lawyers. I'm working with our family office to figure out how to get my wife out of this dream home that we've built and how to defend her financially and help her and all that kind of stuff. And 10 days later we go see the cardiologist and he explains to us that, "Yeah, everything that you're reading is true. However, you have no plaque buildup. Your heart is strong. It's a journey back to correcting it."

Mike Michalowicz (31:51):

Did you reflect on this business? Did you reflect on your family also when you were diagnosed with this?

Donald Miller (31:58):

Yes.

Mike Michalowicz (31:59):

And what were your thoughts?

Donald Miller (31:59):

Yeah, what was shocking to me is like you, I've always just been very ambitious and success is very important to me. And it meant nothing.

Mike Michalowicz (32:07):

Interesting.

Donald Miller (32:08):

My business meant nothing. The money meant nothing. The success meant nothing. All that mattered were my wife, my daughter, and my friends. That was it. Now, I had some financial obligations to get, if I'm going to live one year, I'm not going to be able to set my family up in the way I want to. But if I live five years, I can run the business in such a way that we paint on this debt, we do this, we do this, we move this over here. And my wife would never have to work after I leave.

(32:34):

So, that was the only sort of consideration that I had. But I remember coming into the president of my company and sitting down and having to navigate a careful conversation to say, "Hey, if I get hit by a bus, here's what you should do." And I had this like four-page document. And, "First of all, you need to call this guy, he's going to shepherd you through this." And he's just stopping. He goes, "What are we talking about here?" And I go, "Everybody should have this. Everybody should have a plan. I could die at any point." And then, yeah, we kept talking. And finally, he just goes, "What's going on? You got to tell me what's going on." So, I secretly let him know about the diagnosis and that sort of thing. So, yes, it was very eye-opening and sobering. And.

Mike Michalowicz (33:14):

Life is so finite.

Donald Miller (33:16):

Yeah, it can be over pretty quickly. My doctor thinks I'm going to make it past 90, so none of this is anymore. But I highly recommend that if you can get a doctor to tell you you're dying for about 10 days, and then tell you he was joking, you should do that.

Mike Michalowicz (33:32):

Yeah. See, I was joking. I do see this common theme is going through your darkest period is a revelation in what your capabilities are, an inventory check, not just in health, but also in your business like you did.

Donald Miller (33:44):

Yeah.

Mike Michalowicz (33:45):

Okay. Rapid fires, you can answer however you want. Would you rather have a nightmare vendor or a nightmare client?

Donald Miller (33:52):

Nightmare vendor.

Mike Michalowicz (33:53):

Okay.

Donald Miller (33:53):

Yeah, clients, I think you have to love them, get along with them. Sometimes, those are hard. But nightmare client, it's going to be hard to produce your best results for them. You get one do-over in business.

Mike Michalowicz (34:07):

What's the do-over?

Donald Miller (34:08):

That is a great question. However, I just think every mistake I've ever made has been so informative that I wouldn't want to do it over. Does that make sense?

Mike Michalowicz (34:18):

Yeah, it totally makes sense.

Donald Miller (34:19):

Yeah, I don't think I'd want to do it over. So, no do-overs there. I mean, a lot of mistakes. But gosh, mistakes are more important than successes, I think, in shaping who you are. So, I just, I'm not drawn to the do-over idea.

Mike Michalowicz (34:31):

I love it. What gets you most excited today?

Donald Miller (34:34):

I think the opportunity to play a significant role in critical problems. You get older and people start, and in my work in messaging work, people start inviting you into conversations that affect millions and millions and millions of people. And I've been lucky enough to be in conversations about China policy and how we're going to message China policy at national security. None of this is classified. And various other things fatherlessness on a task force in the White House. To me, it's like you've been playing with a shovel for so long, and now you get to play with an excavator.

(35:10):

And to reach that part of my career, I think has been very, very good and helpful. I remember, Mike, when... And I hope I don't sound arrogant, I remember for years and years, decades always being the smartest guy in the room. I haven't been the smartest guy in the room in the last 10 years, and I'm always in a room with people who are much, much more intelligent than me. And that is incredibly humbling. But it's also just a great opportunity to say, "You need to level up here if you're going to run with these guys." And that's a fun challenge too.

Mike Michalowicz (35:43):

What's the next chapter for you?

Donald Miller (35:45):

Well, I've got a book about creating your life plan. That book is aimed at men, and it's aimed at increasing the strength and the number of people in the provider class in America, sort of calling people back to not achieving success for yourself, but for the sake of others, specifically men, because I think more men are lost today than women. And so, that book is for them.

Mike Michalowicz (36:08):

So, you've said that 40% of the time people are daydreaming. So, what's your daydreams?

Donald Miller (36:13):

That's really funny. That's a very vulnerable question to ask. I mean, what I mean by that is the answer is very embarrassing. But if I'm daydreaming about something, it's still at 53 years old, a 10-year-old as the best player in the NBA or scoring touchdowns for the Seattle Seahawks, whatever. I mean, I'm still that guy. I'm like, laying in bed going, "Oh, wouldn't it be great if I was Marshawn Lynch." I was...

Mike Michalowicz (36:39):

You're totally right.

Donald Miller (36:41):

I don't think that ever ends.

Mike Michalowicz (36:42):

In life. And this is a big open-ended question, but what's the biggest lesson you've learned?

Donald Miller (36:46):

Biggest lesson I learned is if you can take any failure, any failure, no matter how embarrassing it is, and figure out one lesson that you can learn from that failure, it literally redefines the failure in your mind. And it's a big self-esteem booster because even when you said, "What's one thing that you would do different, or if you had a do-over," it was very, very hard for me to think of it because all of those failures were just incredible learning moments.

(37:11):

In fact, the bigger and the more embarrassing it is, the more of a sponge that you can become. As long as you have what Carol Dweck calls a growth mindset instead of a fixed mindset. And a growth mindset is, "I'm a human being. Human beings change all the time." A fixed mindset says, "I'm not good at math." Right? A growth mindset says, "I haven't applied myself at math, but I could probably be very good at it if I did." That's the big lesson that you want to teach everybody is failure is your biggest teacher.

Mike Michalowicz (37:41):

It's your biggest ally.

Donald Miller (37:42):

It forges you, forgive yourself and move on.

Mike Michalowicz (37:45):

Well, let me ask you this, would you unwind any of your success as any premature successes that actually slowed you down?

Donald Miller (37:51):

No. I mean, I'll take them...

Mike Michalowicz (37:54):

Take them as they come.

Donald Miller (37:54):

Yeah. They came late anyway, so...

Mike Michalowicz (37:55):

Give me that half million-dollar check, I'll take it.

Donald Miller (37:58):

Yeah, I'll take that.

Mike Michalowicz (38:00):

And what are you most proud of?

Donald Miller (38:01):

I'm most proud of the fact that I'm home almost every day by 4:00. My phone sits on the credenza in the foyer, and I don't pick it up again until 9:30. And my daughter knows who I am and gets eye contact and conversations for hours every day. That's the most important thing to me.

Mike Michalowicz (38:18):

How do you handle burnout?

Donald Miller (38:19):

Take a break.

Mike Michalowicz (38:19):

But how do you take a break?

Donald Miller (38:23):

Well, we go on long family vacations. I mean, we're about to go to England for 10 days. I don't work on the weekends. I never work on the weekends. I really don't work after 4:00 or 5:00. I mean, burnout is something you actively deciding and scheduling your rest is what a pro figures out how to do and because they want to go the long haul. And if you don't have some fun, we're about to have a lot of fun scheduled in, then you are going to burnout. And I don't call any of my team members after 5:00. I don't think I've ever called anybody on a weekend to talk business. I mean, they're with their families, and why would I do that? That's disrupting their rest, because Monday morning we're going to hit it really hard.

Mike Michalowicz (39:11):

Lin-Manuel Miranda, a Hamilton, he discovered Hamilton on a four-week vacation.

Donald Miller (39:18):

Yeah, that's right. He read the book.

Mike Michalowicz (39:18):

Yeah, he read the book and he said, "I would have never discovered if I didn't go on break."

Donald Miller (39:20):

Yeah.

Mike Michalowicz (39:22):

Morale booster. What do you do to get yours back up and your team's back up?

Donald Miller (39:25):

I don't struggle a whole lot with low morale. I hope my team doesn't either. But I think the biggest booster of morale for yourself and for your team is clarifying your vision. So, I've written my eulogy as a vision statement, which is different than writing it like a eulogy. You're saying, "Here's what Donald Miller did over his lifetime." I read it this morning. And I have a platform that by the time this comes out, we'll be at LivePlan.com where you can... AI will help you write your eulogy based on a bunch of questions. And then, there's a counter to count how many times you've read it. And I'm north of 500 in terms of how many times I've opened my eulogy, read it and clicked. I read it. And it's part of a morning ritual that I do every morning.

Mike Michalowicz (40:11):

Interesting. They say, "Two generations from now, you and I, were forgotten. We're all wiped off the face of the planet." How's that make you feel?

Donald Miller (40:18):

Fine.

Mike Michalowicz (40:19):

Me too.

Donald Miller (40:20):

Yeah, I can't think of any good reason to remember me. I think I want my daughter to remember me really well, like specific memories. And so, we try to take every at bat you can to create a memory. They're not all going to be there in her mind, but to me that's more important than leaving a legacy.

Mike Michalowicz (40:42):

So, what's on the Horizon

Donald Miller (40:44):

On the Horizon is an AI platform called LivePlan.com, and a book called Building a Life Plan. It's probably one of the more provocative books that I've ever written. And the LivePlan.com, we have an in-house engineering team, and it's just a phenomenal tool. I mean, it'll do things like you can leave legacy letters to any of your kids or even your friends. Just if anything happens to me, I want you to have this letter. And AI, not everybody's a writer, so AI will ask you a bunch of really great questions like, "What are your values? And what do you want to leave behind? And what are your favorite memories with this person?" And it'll print out this really beautiful letter. There's a lot. It'll help you with your tenure goals, your five-year projects, your one-year priorities. There's a journal entry platform to it.

(41:34):

So, there's a lot going on at LivePlan.com. It's all, it's free. And I'm excited about releasing that. That's on the Horizon.

Mike Michalowicz (41:42):

LivePlan.com. They said, in preparation for this, what would I want to say about Don? So, I looked up all these quotes and they say there's a quote, "Nice guys, don't win." And I affirm that. Nice guys, don't win. Nice guys, make other people win. And that's the definition of who you are.

Donald Miller (41:56):

Wow. That means the world. Thank you.

Mike Michalowicz (41:58):

Thanks for listening to Becoming Self Made a Relay podcast. Follow the show to make sure you don't miss a single episode. And if you like what you hear, rate and review while you're at it. Becoming Self Made is produced by Relay Financial, in partnership with me, Mike Michalowicz and Pod People.